Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Chris Tillman throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers in Detroit, Sunday.
CARLOS OSORIO — The Associated Press

DETROIT >> The Detroit Tigers won two games already in their final at-bat.

They couldn’t make it three, however, falling to the Baltimore Orioles, 3-1, in Sunday’s series finale, an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel between Justin Verlander and the Baltimore Orioles’ Chris Tillman.

“You’d like to get 10 runs every time you go out there, but that’s not the reality, especially when you’re going up against the other team’s No. 1,” Verlander said.

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“Tillman did a great job. He pitched extremely well, and in the eighth inning, it just ended up being one big hit that ended up being the ballgame.

“We tried there in the ninth, but just couldn’t get it done.”

Tillman blinked first, but Verlander blinked last.

The Tigers (4-1) came into the game as the last remaining unbeaten in baseball, and trying for their first 5-0 start since 2006.

Tillman extinguished those hopes abruptly.

“We swung the bat well the last couple of days,” manager Brad Ausmus said. “Today, the bats cooled a little, but I think that had more to do with Tillman than anything else.”

The Orioles’ ace had more strikeouts (five) than the Tigers had hits (four) in the contest. He’s credited Verlander for giving him advice at last year’s All-Star Game.

“We were sitting right next to each other, and we just talked a little pitching. It wasn’t anything in particular,” Verlander said, adding jokingly: “Maybe now I regret telling him anything.”

Both No. 1s went deep into Sunday’s series finale.

Verlander threw 112 pitches through eight innings, Tillman 113 through two batters in the ninth. Victor Martinez’s one-out double knocked Tillman out of the game, and brought the potential tying run to the plate in the person of Austin Jackson.

Orioles closer Tommy Hunter struck out Jackson and got rookie Tyler Collins to ground out to end the game, after an eight-pitch battle in which he threw six pitches 95 mph or faster.

Tillman blinked first, after retiring the first 10 Tigers he saw. Torii Hunter homered for the third straight game to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead in the fourth.

The Tigers would get two runners past second base the rest of the way.

Then it was Verlander’s turn to blink.

Nelson Cruz, who’d been 2-for-21 off Justin Verlander to before the at-bat, doubled in Adam Jones to tie it at 1-1 in the top of the sixth.

Nick Markakis tripled with one out in the eighth, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Adam Jones, putting the Orioles up, 2-1.

“The Markakis triple, I executed my pitch, and he got jammed and just hit it in the right spot. Made a nice, aggressive play to turn it into a triple. Adam Jones put up a nice at-bat against me,” said Verlander, who is still winless after two starts, but moved into fourth on the team’s all-time strikeout list Sunday.

“No, no it’s not easy (to shrug off). It’s just one of those things. You have to be able to look in the mirror and say, ‘OK, I did a good job. Just didn’t happen today.’ The other guy pitched extremely well, and we didn’t score much. My job today would have been to give up zero runs. I wasn’t quite able to do that, but you gotta take away positives, and move forward.”

Matt Wieters added an insurance run with a solo home run in the ninth off Al Alburquerque.